[SOLVED] Future "tr" users, read this thread,

Hya,

Expected readers: tr users, not quite power users

Situation: You want to manipulate "-" (hyphen)

Read this thread!

It may be a special character (range), as regex. You can escape with '\'

I ran into this situation, and took several days to settle down.

I only checked man page. You should read info page also!

Have a happy penguin!

would be nice to show a [real] example

Originally Posted by kaz2100 You can escape with '\'

Yep, escaping characters is very common and can be very useful with all sorts of CLI utilites, shells, etc.
Not at all specific to tr.

Originally Posted by pan64 would be nice to show a [real] example

Following, how I ran into trouble

cat someFile | tr -d '/-_'

Yes, it is important, so I checked man file. I know who was careless.

but the solution is wrong.

cat someFile | tr -d '\-_'

you need to use backslash instead of forward slash. What you wrote will remove / too.
From the other hand

cat someFile | tr -d '_-'
# and
cat someFile | tr -d -- '-_'

will work too

An embedded dash makes tr recognize a range.
Putting the dash first makes tr recognize an option.
Workarounds:

tr -d '/\-_'
tr -d -- '-/_'
tr -d '/_-'

Hya,

Thanks for your comments.

Yes, I lost everything between '/' and '_' (inclusive) with

cat someFile | tr -d '/-_'

and it took long for me to figure out. This is the reason for this thread.

All intended readers in future can save more time with these comments.

Take home message:
Penguins, read this thread before you run into this trouble.

Yep, reading all the info available with man and info helps.
Also,
Have a backup of the original so you don't muck something up!
is always a good idea.